How Disqus Ranks Will Improve On-Site User Engagement

Disqus is quietly testing a new project called Disqus Ranks, an interface that will allow site owners to give credentials, ranks, and labels to users that comment. Given the increasing importance of the social web and social search, Ranks will help with the identification of experts with a blog or community. Bigger publishers have adopted a similar social strategy already, evaluating a user’s influence and rewarding users through badges, adding status to the network and community, a measure of a user’s significance.

Many communities don’t have a custom coded evaluation system, and Disqus Ranks aims to solve this problem, adding ease of use to social ranking within one’s own site. Once Disqus releases the beta, it will be present within the interface as an additional feature within the menu.

The site owner or community manager will also have the ability to add weight to engagement based on the type of interaction, ranking activities from most to least important.

After, weight is defined, custom titles can be created and assigned based on user qualifications. For example, user titles can be created based on how often someone visits the site and how often they comment.

With the continued evolution of conversion and social interaction throughout the web, it’s only natural that this is a strong emerging trend within web communities. Commenting alone has become a tool of the past, making conversion relevant, making users relevant within a community, is the future. Identify your experts.